Obama Emphasizes Education, Job Growth in Budget Speech

Update (11:38 a.m. EST): The president has just finished speaking. As part of his budget proposal, the president outlined an $8 billion community college job training program that he said could train two million workers in fields such as transportation, health care, and cyber security "today." The Washington Post has more on the president's proposed education spending, which increases by 2.5 percent from the previous year's budget.

Update (11:32 a.m. EST): Obama referred back to his comparison of Warren Buffett and his secretary, saying, "asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in terms of tax rate, that's common sense."

Update (11:29 a.m. EST): The White House budget proposal has just been made available in full here as a PDF.

Update (11:23 a.m.): The president referred back to his State of the Union address while introducing his budget, saying he'd "outlined a blueprint for an economy that's built to last," and that "today we're releasing the details of that blueprint in the form of next year's budget." He said the "main idea" of the budget was that "at a time when our economy is growing and gaining jobs at a faster clip, we've got to do everything we can to keep that recovery on track." He said some of the proposed budget cuts he "wouldn't necessarily make," if they weren't necessary, but cautioned, "we can't cut our way into growth."

Original: President Barack Obama debuted the White House budget for fiscal year 2013 on Monday, and he's scheduled to offer some remarks on it at 11 a.m. Some components, such as the proposed investment in transportation and the transfer of Iraq war funds to domestic projects aren't expected to get any Republican approval in Congress, but other parts, such as tax reform, trimming regulatory agencies' budgets, and extending the payroll tax holiday should get some traction, The Atlantic Wire's John Hudson wrote. White House chief of Staff Jack Lew defended the budget request on the Sunday talk shows, but Obama has been silent on it so far. Hear what he has to say, below.

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